ROCKINGHAM, N.C. — First-time winner William Sawalich led the final 79 laps of Saturday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 250 NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Rockingham Speedway.
Pursuing Sawalich for much of that period were Brandon Jones and Justin Allgaier, both of whom appeared to have a shot at testing the leader in the closing laps. On a day when passing in the front group was a major challenge on a recently paved track where grip remains strong, the followers made sporadic gains on Sawalich but couldn’t close the transaction.
Jones was 0.863 of a second behind in the runner-up spot, and Allgaier was a close third, 2.075 seconds behind Sawalich.
The chances to make gains, Jones said, were few.
“I was pushing so hard that I was making little mistakes here and there,” Jones said. “I missed the corner one lap, and then I was about a tenth-and-a-half (of a second) better the next lap. The track is so finicky. This place is very high grip, and that means you’re going to be on edge at times. I’m doing all the things I can do inside the car to adjust, but there’s not much you can change. There are just little things you can try to improve your balance on.”
Jones said Sawalich had better speed out of the gate on restarts.
“His short-run speed was great,” he said. “He took off really well. We were a little bit worse than them to take off, but if you look at it like a graph it’s like my car would get a little better and his would get a little worse over the long run. But he was able to build such a big lead early that it was hard to get back to him.”
Jones said he was adamant about being “super aggressive” Saturday after running what he called a disappointing race the previous week at Martinsville Speedway, where he finished 18th.
“I left Martinsville a little frustrated at myself last week,” he said. “I am going to take all of the runs I can get. I’m going to put people in bad situations, if I can, and just move forward. I think we did a really good job of it. We kept fighting both sides of it with balance today. Sam (McAuley, crew chief) did a great job taking all of my feedback and making a car, I think, capable of winning. It was just a matter of trying to get some track position, and he (Sawalich) got such a big restart on that last restart that it was hard to catch him.”
Jones has scored two runner-up finishes in the past three races. “I’ll take that,” he said. “I like the momentum we’ve got.”
Allgaier, the series’ dominant driver this year, missed a shot at a fourth seasonal win but expressed satisfaction with a fifth consecutive top-five run and sixth of the season.
He echoed Jones’ frustration at trying to catch Sawalich.
“We were all fighting the same thing,” Allgaier said. “When we got to lapped traffic, it would slow the 18 (Sawalich) and then we’d catch him and then it would all kind of accordion back and forth.
“Track position made all the difference in the second half. When you were able to get some clear air and get separated some, that was so important. I was loving the fact that the track kind of widened out and we were able to move around a lot. But when you caught the cars in front of you, you had to have clean air. If you couldn’t get to that point, you couldn’t do much with it.”
Along pit road after the race, there was talk that passing conditions between mostly equal cars would improve significantly as the track surface ages.
“You had to make the moves when you could and get past those guys when you could,” Allgaier said. “I just didn’t do a very good job of that today. But when you get out of here with a bunch of stage points and finish third, it’s hard to be really upset about it.”
Allgaier leads the points by 126 over Jesse Love, who finished 27th, two laps down.
Cleetus McFarland left his NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut at Rockingham Speedway with plenty of experience under his belt.
The YouTube sensation finished 32nd, six laps down, but he made his biggest splash at Lap 206 when his No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet broke loose in Turn 3, sliding to the bottom of the track before spinning back into traffic to draw the seventh caution flag of the day.
The adventure began early for McFarland, who ran both the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race and the ARCA Menards Series East event Saturday at Rockingham. A daring move at Lap 4 put his car on the bottom of a three-wide situation entering Turn 1. McFarland slid sideways and made a remarkable save, but immediately lost significant ground to the leaders.
Another close call occurred at Lap 49. Blake Lothian spun in Turn 2 just ahead of McFarland. As Lothian wandered down the track, McFarland barely avoided his No. 55 Chevrolet, diving to the apron and missing the car by inches.
McFarland finished fourth in the ARCA East race, combining to complete 369 of his scheduled 375 laps around Rockingham on Saturday.
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. — Grabbing the lead and control of the race after a restart on Lap 172, William Sawalich pulled away over the final 79 laps to win Saturday’s North Carolina Education Lottery 250 Presented by Black’s Tire at Rockingham Speedway.
The victory was the first in the NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series for the 19-year-old Sawalich, the youngest driver to win at the 0.94-mile track in any of NASCAR’s top three series.
Sawalich, who led 80 laps, crossed the finish line 0.863 seconds ahead of Joe Gibbs Racing teammate Brandon Jones to end the five-race winning streak of JR Motorsports and preserve the series record of six straight victories for JGR.
“It means everything,” said Sawalich, who gained three positions to 11th in the series standings. “Honestly, it was a tough year last year and a tough start to the year this year. Gosh, it feels good to get it done here at Rockingham in front of an awesome crowd.
“Our Supra was on rails today, obviously. Good in Stage 1 (fifth), Stage 2 (second) and obviously amazing in clean air. Lapped traffic took me out last year (in a 25th-place finish), so that was running through my head a little bit, but, man, I just studied the race last year, calmed down — and everything’s fine.”
With the win, Sawalich earned eligibility for the first Dash 4 Cash race next Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, The CW, PRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio). The top four finishers at Rockingham — Sawalich, Jones and third- and fourth-place finishers Justin Allgaier and Rajah Caruth — will compete for a $100,000 bonus in that event, with the top finisher among them claiming the prize.
Caruth, in fact, made a spectacular three-wide pass of both Sheldon Creed and Carson Kvapil with nine laps left to grab the last Dash 4 Cash position. Kvapil finished fifth and Creed sixth, followed by Taylor Gray, Parker Retzlaff, Ryan Sieg and pole winner Corey Day.
For the first half of the race, Day appeared to have the dominant car. The 20-year-old led a race-high 118 of the 250 laps and swept the first two stages — the first stage wins of his career.
But Day lost five positions on a slow pit stop during the second stage break and never recovered. On Lap 174, he pitted out of sequence for a loose lug nut and charged from 24th over the final 70 laps to post his seventh straight top 10.
“We had a couple of bad pit stops,” Day said. “We got behind there, and it was hard to dig ourselves out of the hole.”
Jones was pleased with the progress his runner-up finish represents.
“I left Martinsville a little frustrated at myself last week (after finishing 18th),” Jones said. “We weren’t quite aggressive enough at times, so today, I was super adamant on being super aggressive. I am going to take all of the runs I can get. I’m going to put people in bad situations, if I can, and just move forward.
“I think we did a really good job of it. We kept fighting both sides of it with balance today. Sam (McAulay, crew chief) did a great job taking all of my feedback and making a car, I think, capable of winning. It was just a matter of trying to get some track position, and he (Sawalich) got such a big restart on that last restart (after the seventh caution on Lap 206) that it was hard to catch him.”
Allgaier had the consolation of leaving Rockingham with a lead of 126 points over second-place Jesse Love in the O’Reilly Auto Parts standings. Love hit the outside wall after a shove from Caruth, lost track position on a subsequent unscheduled pit stop on Lap 153 and finished 27th, two laps down.
Additionally:
Sawalich is the first Minnesota-born driver to win a race in any of NASCAR’s top three national series.
Caruth’s fourth-place finish in the No. 88 JRM Chevrolet was a career best. He’ll drive the No. 32 Jordan Anderson Racing Chevrolet at Bristol while Kyle Larson will take a turn in the No. 88 Camaro.
JR Motorsports put three drivers (Allgaier, Caruth and Kvapil) in the top 10, extending the organization’s streak of at least one driver in the top 10 to 65 races — second in the series all-time to RFK Racing, then known as Roush Fenway Racing (79 straight top 10s).
Note: Inspection in the O’Reilly Auto Parts Series garage was completed without issues, confirming Sawalich as the Rockingham winner. The Nos. 20, 7 and 00 will return to the NASCAR R&D Center in Concord, North Carolina, for further inspection.
Stage 2 recap
Corey Day won Stage 2 to earn a clean sweep of the stages in Saturday’s NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series race at Rockingham Speedway.
William Sawalich was second over Justin Allgaier, Brent Crews and Brandon Jones. Rajah Caruth, Parker Retzlaff, Sheldon Creed, Jeremy Clements and Carson Kvapil completed the top 10.
The stage started with familiar fireworks as Caruth and Jesse Love collided at Lap 71. Love slid ahead of Caruth exiting Turn 2, but Caruth darted left as Love went right. Caruth’s front bumper caught Love’s rear and sent Love into the SAFER barrier.
The two drivers also converged in the closing laps of last week’s race at Martinsville Speedway, leading to a prolonged post-race conversation and a confrontation between Love’s crew chief, Danny Stockman, and Caruth. In Stage 2 on Saturday, Love finished as the final car on the lead lap in 27th place.
Clements was running eighth at Lap 94 when he spun in Turn 1 for the third caution of the day. His No. 51 Chevrolet wiggled on entry and washed high before the right rear stepped out, sending Clements for a slide. Clements stayed on the lead lap, and after pitting for fresher tires, rebounded to earn two stage points despite the incident.
Finishing the stage in 10th, Kvapil reported a potential brake issue on his No. 1 JR Motorsports Chevrolet.
During the stage break, Day lost the lead after a slow pit stop by the No. 17 crew, costing the Hendrick driver five positions.
Cleetus McFarland, in his O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debut, finished the stage 33rd in the No. 33 Chevrolet, two laps down.
Sam Mayer, driver of the No. 41 Haas Factory Team Chevrolet, ran 38th — last — due to an engine issue.
Meg Oliphant | Getty Images
Stage 1 recap
Corey Day surged past Taylor Gray with three laps left in the stage to win Stage 1 in a frenzied finish to the opening stanza of Saturday’s race.
Day led 54 of the opening 60 laps en route to the stage victory over Gray, Brandon Jones, Justin Allgaier and William Sawalich. Jesse Love, Sammy Smith, Brent Crews, Rajah Caruth and Parker Retzlaff concluded the top 10.
The caution flag waved at Lap 49 for the first time Saturday after a spin by Blake Lothian. YouTube sensation and O’Reilly Auto Parts Series debutant Cleetus McFarland barely avoided catastrophe by diving left to avoid Lothian’s spinning No. 55 Chevrolet.
Under the caution, Gray and Smith stayed out as well as Anthony Alfredo and Kyle Sieg. All other lead-lap drivers hit pit road at Lap 51.
McFarland found early adversity in his series debut. At Lap 4, McFarland entered Turn 1 on the bottom of a three-wide situation with Josh Bilicki and Nathan Byrd. McFarland’s No. 33 Richard Childress Racing Chevrolet slid sideways through the corner, but the Nebraska native maintained control and saved the vehicle. McFarland finished the stage in 35th, one lap down after falling off the lead lap at Lap 27.
At the front of the field, third-place qualifier Retzlaff nearly crashed on Lap 1. Exiting Turn 2, his No. 99 Viking Motorsports Chevrolet broke loose and caught the left-rear corner of Justin Allgaier’s car. Both drivers held on and settled into the race despite the dicey start.
The NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series and Craftsman Truck Series return to Rockingham Speedway this week, while the Cup Series enjoys an off weekend. Bookmark this page and come back often for your race-week essentials — from links to qualifying order, average practice speeds, results and more.
NASCAR O’Reilly Auto Parts Series
Race day: Saturday at 2:30 p.m. ET on The CW. The categories listed below will be filled out with links as the information becomes available.
Chandler Smith and his No. 38 Front Row Motorsports Ford were disqualified following Friday’s NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Rockingham Speedway.
Officials ruled Smith’s truck failed to meet post-race rear body inspection height requirements. As a result, Smith is credited with a last-place finish of 36th despite taking the checkered flag in fourth.
Smith entered Friday’s contest as the series’ points leader. After replacing a broken shock after qualifying, per FOX Sports, his No. 38 truck took the green flag from the rear of the field for unapproved adjustments.
By the end of Stage 2, Smith worked his way up to 16th place before charging into the top five late in the race.
Instead of the 33 points he would have received for finishing fourth, Smith leaves Rockingham with one earned point. Race winner Corey Heim and Kaden Honeycutt now share the lead in the Truck Series points standings. However, due to his part-time status, Heim is ineligible for championship contention.
The Truck Series returns to action Friday, April 10 at Bristol Motor Speedway (7:30 p.m. ET, FS1, NRN Radio, SiriusXM NASCAR Radio).
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. – On an afternoon that seemed to be all about Corey Heim, Kaden Honeycutt and Layne Riggs produced some late-race drama in Friday’s Black’s Tire 200 NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race at Rockingham Speedway.
Heim won the first two stages and led 178 of the 200 laps. He had almost no challengers most of the day and looked to be building a victory margin of several seconds.
Instead, Heim’s Tricon Garage truck lost some of its edge in the closing miles because of steering issues, and Honeycutt and Riggs were there to try and turn the tables. Heim still won, but Honeycutt, also in a Tricon truck, was a heartbeat behind in second by 0.090 seconds. Riggs surged to get a close third, only 0.461 seconds behind the winner.
For Honeycutt, the seasonal climb continues. He has three consecutive top fives – fifth at St. Petersburg, fourth at Darlington and second on Friday.
“I caught him (Heim),” Honeycutt said. “I don’t really know what I should have done differently to win the race. I feel like it’s so narrow down there. I couldn’t have run into my teammate. It’s unfortunate that we were down there together. But it’s awesome that we keep on climbing.”
Honeycutt said late-race changes to his truck gave him a shot at catching Heim.
“At the end of it, we made a really good adjustment, and that made it a lot better, a lot more drivable for me,” he said. “I think that’s ultimately how I was able to run him down in the long run. So we just need to figure out how to be a little better at the end.”
James Gilbert | Getty Images
Riggs, who has a win and a third in two of the past three races, said the tangle of lapped trucks near the finish made decisions difficult.
“You don’t know what they’re going to do,” Riggs said. “Here, you have to commit so early. You can’t switch lanes once you commit to whatever one you’re going to run. I was expecting them and wanted them to go to the bottom, so I was going to kind of run the top and try to keep the momentum, but hindsight is always 20-20.”
Riggs said the drivers he raced around most of the day had better restarts and ran well on short runs, but his truck ran smoother during longer stretches.
“Everybody else around me could really fire off well, but I’d be at the best at the end of the run, so I just need to figure out what we need to do to be better there,” he said. “Overall, though, I feel like we had a fifth- to seventh-place truck and we finished third with it. I’m smiling.”
ROCKINGHAM, N.C. — Even as a part-time driver, Corey Heim proved he can still dominate — until the final four laps of Friday’s Black’s Tire 200 at Rockingham Speedway, that is.
Heim led a personal-best 178 laps in winning his second NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series race of the season and the 25th of his career — fifth-most all-time.
In the closing laps, however, he had to overcome skewed steering and chattering tires in his No. 1 Toyota to fend off a determined charge from Tricon Garage teammate Kaden Honeycutt’s No. 11 Tundra.
Heim won last year’s series title in the No. 11, but he’s not defending this season as he explores part-time opportunities in all three of NASCAR’s national series.
Nevertheless, Heim swept the first two stages of a race for the 13th time in his career. His two stage wins on Friday were his 44th and 45th.
Heim is the first driver this season to score maximum points in a race in any of the top three series, winning both stages and turning the fastest lap — 22.965 seconds on Lap 174.
What’s more, Heim won his second straight race in the Triple Truck Challenge — good for a $100,000 bonus — and will race for $500,000 next Saturday at Bristol Motor Speedway. That bonus is available to a driver who can win all three races in “The Trip.”
“Yeah, it means a lot,” Heim said of the potential payday. “I don’t really think about it in the truck, but being able to reflect on it, it would be cool to be the first person to sweep all three if we are able to do it.
“There is a lot of motivation for these guys in the 1 camp with (sponsor) Celsius as our primary next week, so super excited about that.”
All statistics aside, Heim had to use his full arsenal of race craft over the final four laps to hold off Honeycutt, who was seeking his first victory. Experiencing a vibration similar to that of a tire losing air, Heim adroitly worked traffic as the race near its end.
Honeycutt got to Heim’s bumper with three laps left and actually nosed ahead to lead the white-flag lap, but Heim drove aggressively into Turn 1, using teammate Tanner Gray to block Honeycutt’s progress.
Exiting Turn 4 on the final circuit, Heim held a slight lead and arrived at the finish line 0.090 seconds ahead of the car he drove to last year’s championship.
“I felt like I didn’t push it any harder than any previous run or do any more damage to the right front, but it was like all of a sudden, with four to go, my truck started just … I had to turn more right down the straightaway to keep it straight,” Heim said.
“My wheel was clocked at like 20 degrees to the right, and it was chattering really bad in the corners, and I was like, ‘Oh, boy, here we go, we’re going to lose this one in the worst way possible.’
“But it hung in there, and I just had to use a couple of lapped trucks to hold him off. Respect Kaden for racing me clean. I did what I had to do there at the end, but first win for (sponsor) Robinhood. First win in my J’s (Jordan Brand) — my race shoes.”
Honeycutt was gracious after coming so close.
“I tried to shove Tanner (Gray) as far as I can and hoped that he would have gone to the bottom or something like that, but I don’t really know what I could have done differently other than run me and him down in the marbles and all that,” Honeycutt sad.
“I didn’t want to do that, but I wanted to make sure that me or Corey won the race, and I obviously wanted to win it, but it was good that our Tricon organization could do that. Our team has been really, really good this year — across all teams. I think this shows that. Corey’s done great with the 5 and the 1.
“Fast race trucks every week, and I think our time will come.”
Front Row Motorsports driver Layne Riggs finished third. Stewart Friesen was fourth, followed by Grant Enfinger, Tyler Ankrum (last year’s Rockingham winner), Corey LaJoie, Ty Majeski, pole winner Jake Garcia and Cole Butcher.
Note: Following post-race inspection in the Craftsman Truck Series garage, the No. 38 Ford was disqualified for failing to meet post-race rear body inspection height requirements. The No. 1 Toyota passed post-race technical inspection, confirming Heim as the Rockingham winner.
Herb Nab’s name may not have been on the car door, but his fingerprints were all over Victory Lane. A meticulous innovator and quiet perfectionist, Nab built the cars that carried legends like Fred Lorenzen, Bobby Allison and Cale Yarborough to wins — and into NASCAR history.
Raised in North Carolina amid the postwar short-track boom, Nab’s mechanical skill quickly drew the attention of top teams. By the 1960s, he was one of the sport’s most trusted crew chiefs. With Fred Lorenzen at Holman-Moody, he helped turn “Fearless Freddy” into a national star, capturing dominant wins at the Daytona 500, World 600 and other major events.
Nab reached the sport’s highest peak as the back-to-back Cup Series champion crew chief for Cale Yarborough in 1976-77, a run defined by precision, preparation, and a talent for turning fast cars into champions.
Over his career, he earned 92 wins as a crew chief (third-most all-time), including two Daytona 500s, four Southern 500s, and three Coca-Cola 600s.
Growing up in Dawsonville, Georgia, Ernie Elliott built his reputation not behind the wheel, but under the hood, where precision, creativity, and mechanical instinct defined his contribution to NASCAR competition. Working alongside his family’s racing efforts, Elliott emerged as one of the sport’s premier engine builders.
For 279 Cup Series races, Elliott served as crew chief for his younger brother, NASCAR Hall of Famer Bill Elliott, guiding him to 33 wins and 39 poles, including two Daytona 500s, two Southern 500s, the inaugural Winston Million in 1985 and the 1988 championship.
As an engine builder, his cars amassed 40 Cup Series victories, 148 top five finishes and 291 top 10s, earning him recognition as Engine Builder of the Year in 1985 and Engine Builder of the Decade for the 1980s.
Elliott’s work in the garage and on the pit box set a standard for performance and strategy, producing championship-level cars and leaving a lasting mark that endures.
Ernie Elliott bio
Born: July 25, 1947 Hometown: Dawsonville, Georgia
Championships (1) Cup – 1988
Cup Series Crew Chief Stats
Competed: 1980-99 Starts: 279 Wins: 33 Poles: 39 Years on Ballot: 1
A New England native, Ray Fox saw his first automobile race at the 2-mile board track at Rockingham Park near Salem, New Hampshire. Following service in the U.S. Army in World War II, Fox moved to Daytona Beach, Florida, to work as a mechanic.
Fox built the engine in the Buick driven by Fireball Roberts that led the 1955 Daytona Road & Beach Course wire-to-wire. Roberts, however, was disqualified after it was determined the car’s mechanic, Red Vogt, had modified the pushrods. In 1956, Fox went to work for Carl Kiekhaefer whose Chrysler 300 cars won 22 of the season’s first 26 races and was named Mechanic of the Year.
In 1960, Fox built the Chevrolet in which Junior Johnson won the Daytona 500. David Pearson won three times that year driving Fox-built Pontiacs.
In 1962, Fox became a car owner. He won nine times with Johnson and twice — including the 1964 Southern 500 — with NASCAR Hall of Famer Buck Baker. Over the years, five NASCAR Hall of Famers took the wheel for Fox, including Cale Yarborough and Fred Lorenzen.
Fox retired in the early 1970s but in 1990 accepted the role of NASCAR’s engine inspector, a position he held until his second retirement at the age of 80 in 1996.
Ray Fox bio
Born: May 28, 1916 Died: June 15, 2014 Hometown: Daytona Beach, Florida
Cup Series Owner Stats Competed: 1962-74 Starts: 200 Wins: 14 Poles: 16 Years on Ballot: 9
